Strawberry Infused Chocolate Chip Scones

Three years ago, we started going to a local bakery/cafe for their “afternoon tea” to celebrate my birthday. This is my favorite bakery. The food is incredible to look at and even better to eat!

I insist upon getting their Opera Cream cake for my birthday cake. It’s so sinfully delicious. That is the only cake I will ever purchase! More on that cake in a later post! As I was saying, when we sit down for our tea, we each have our own special china tea-cup. They are usually mismatched which adds to the charm. The kids feel so grown up to be drinking out of real china! I always have the ginger peach tea. My kids love tea as well, so they relish the tea choices, and they are numerous.

Lunch is served on a 3 tier tray. The first tier has scones, served with lemon curd and clotted cream. They include sliced date nut bread as well. I’ll be honest, no one but my husband eats those! The second tier has finger sandwiches. There is the traditional cream cheese and cucumber sandwich, a salmon and dill sandwich, pb & j for the kids and a turkey and basil sandwich. They are superb! No one eats the pb & j because we ALL devour the other sandwiches!! I mean we shovel them into our mouths! Truth be told we don’t only eat like pigs because they taste wonderful, but we each want to be the one to get to dessert first. It’s every man for themselves!! Because the last tier and thankfully the largest is filled with sweets! Our favorite! The desserts are usually whoopee pies, decorated cookies, brownies with dainty frosted rosettes, and thumbprint cookies. It’s a total frenzy! This is where our manners leave us. If we were in an actual English tea shop, we’d be given the boot. We are totally uncivilized!! It’s all so good, we just can’t eat it fast enough! Really, you’d think we’d never eaten dessert before! We all get too full very quickly. We get our goodies boxed up to take home to enjoy after our stomaches settle. When we get home, I hide the box in the back of the refrigerator so that I can have the sweets all to myself after the kids go to bed. Because that’s the kind of mom I am! This is for my birthday after all!

Since we starting coming to tea, I’ve developed a thing for scones. Thicker than a cookie, flaky but denser than a biscuit. I just love them and my kids do too. Our favorite recipe is a chocolate chip scone adapted from All Recipes. Because I had frozen strawberries left over from my cupcakes, I decided to use them in this recipe. But instead of adding chopped strawberries into the batter, I made a strawberry butter instead. I then used this butter once it was chilled. I used the juice from the strawberries to intensify the flavor. The end result was so tasty! I love chocolate and strawberries together. I highly recommend you try this. Tea is optional! Enjoy!

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Store in refrigerator until chilled.

Preheat oven to 400. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in cold butter with a pastry cutter until resembles course meal. Add chocolate chips. Poor in liquid. Mix by hand until dry ingredients form dough. Poor onto floured surface. Pat into a large circle. With biscuit cutter or cookie cutter, cut into desired shape and place on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Let rest on baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing to rack to cool.

The face behind the blog

I’m Tanya, welcome to my blog! I’m here to bring your family around the dinner table. Good food does not have to be complicated! If you have a busy family or if you don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen, you’ve come to the right place! This blog is about no fuss recipes made with fresh ingredients. Simple meals that will put good food on the table fast so you can spend more time with your family! »